Luca Nocco

An Investigation on Legal Regulations for Robot Deployment in Urban Areas: A Focus on Italian Law

This paper investigates the administrative, criminal and civil aspects of Italian law in order to find out whether and how current legal regulations impact on robot deployment in urban environments. The paper is based on a case study. The objects of this study are two autonomous mobile robots designed to carry out urban hygiene services in pedestrian areas. The paper points out a major problem in Italian law — the lack of legal qualification for autonomous mobile robots operating on public roads. On the contrary, at present, no relevant implications are identified with regard to Italian criminal and civil law. As a matter of fact, although autonomous, the robots that are at the center of this study can still be considered as properties and, therefore, are excluded from any personal liability in case of damage to people or things.

Robotic Technologies and Fundamental Rights: Robotics Challenging the European Constitutional Framework

Robotic technologies?constructed systems that interact with their environment in a way that displays some level of agency?are increasingly intertwined with human life and human bodies. This raises many regulatory questions, since current legal frameworks have few robotics-specific provisions and robotics pose new challenges to legal notions and underlying assumptions. To help guide the regulation of robotics, fundamental rights should provide a basic touchstone. However, the constitutional framework of fundamental rights is itself not immune to being influenced by robotics. This paper discusses how the protection of fundamental rights is affected by robotics technologies, taking into account the mutual-shaping process of fundamental rights, regulation, and technology. After a general overview of how fundamental rights are challenged by robotics technologies, we zoom in on three specific application domains: industrial robotics and the issue of workers’ rights and liability, assistive technology with a focus on autonomy and privacy of elderly and disabled people, and biomedical robotics (including brain-machine interfaces) in relation to informed consent and self-determination. The analysis highlights diverse implications of robotics in light of fundamental rights and values, suggesting that regulators will have to deal with rights and value conflicts arising from robotics developments. To help address these conflicts, a set of shared norms, standards and guidelines could be developed that may, in the form of soft-law, serve as a bridge between abstract fundamental rights and concrete robotics practice.

Children as Victims under Italian Law

In Italy, the most frequent causes of damage to those under the age of majority arise out of the special characteristics and limitations which are a feature of youth, and can therefore be partially distinguished from those applicable to people in general. Broadly speaking, we can identify six areas of interest.